In the past and even in many of today's communication environments, land mobile radios (LMR) have operated over a narrowband network for use in public safety environments, such as law enforcement, fire rescue, and the like, while smartphone devices have operated over broadband networks for other business or consumer oriented applications. However, the power of broadband is reshaping public safety. With appropriate software applications and platforms some communication devices now offer group communication functionality carried out over a broadband network. In situations where different organizations may need to interoperate with each other, the larger availability of broadband frequencies and devices, along with the applications supported by broadband, such as telephony, text, and video, imaging and multimedia applications, makes LMR over broadband an attractive approach to communication. However, the integration of LMR functionality over a broadband network has come with certain challenges. For example, the ability to appropriately optimize such communication devices to prioritize public safety functions has heretofore been limited to the Emergency function. Other public safety functions, such as public safety push-to-talk (PTT) audio and other audio applications related to public safety, have been facing challenges due to the fact that certain operating systems prioritize telephony calls, over incoming public safety calls. There is a need, particularly for those users operating in public safety environments, to have quick access to a public safety call. However, any attempts to change priority must take care not to impact the operating system and/or third party applications which cannot be modified.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to prioritize communications services for first responders operating in a broadband network, such as LMR, within the bounds of an open source operating system and without impacting third party applications or interfaces. The ability to configure audio prioritization would also be extremely advantageous as certain customers have different priority needs. An approach that creates a seamless communications experience across LMR and broadband networks and devices is thus highly desirable.
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The apparatus and method components have been represented where appropriate by conventional symbols in the drawings, showing only those specific details that are pertinent to understanding the embodiments of the present invention so as not to obscure the disclosure with details that will be readily apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art having the benefit of the description herein.